BAGRAM AIR BASE, (Afghanistan), Oct 3: At least six people were killed and seven others injured on Friday in a massive explosion which destroyed several houses outside the US-led military coalition’s main base in Afghanistan, the US military and rescue workers said.

A spokesman for the US-led force at the base said there had been no casualties among its troops.

The latest incident follows a mine blast on the outskirts of Kabul on Thursday that killed two Canadian peacekeepers and wounded three.

The Canadian contingent of the peacekeeping force said on Friday the blast was under investigation to determine if it was the result of hostile action.

Earlier on Friday, another U.S. military spokesman, Colonel Rodney Davis, told a news briefing U.S.-led forces had fired 120-mm mortars and machineguns at the suspected launch point of nine rockets that landed near a U.S. base.

He said the rockets landed near the base at Orgun-e in Paktika province on Thursday, but caused no casualties or damage.

“Four bodies were pulled out from the rubble and two bodies were missing,” US Army Maj David Long said at the site of the blast in the Qala-e-Gulai village, less than a kilometre from the Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.

Maj Long said it appeared that people in the house at the centre of the blast were dismantling a cluster bomb which exploded.

Four other Russian-made cluster bombs and bomb parts were discovered stacked in the house, he said. US troops later carried out controlled explosions to destroy the bombs.

An Afghan rescue worker also said six people were killed in the explosion.

US military police at the Bagram Air Base said seven injured people had also been taken to the base’s military hospital for treatment.— Agencies